


Before He Turned

by Revonue



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:27:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23922331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revonue/pseuds/Revonue
Summary: Sam has some time to think before he turns. Mostly about his brother. Henry was strict out of love and concern, but Sam doesn't realize it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Before He Turned

Ellie shut the door and Sam threw the robot down. Nothing had ever seemed further from him than the moment he had seen it in the toy shop and yearned for it, tried to take it. Yearned for a normal childhood. Stupid. 

How many times had Henry told him the same thing? It was utterly useless to try to crawl after something they could never have. Normal was not obtainable. But the Fireflies- that was a goal they could reach. But only if Sam kept his head down. Only if he never, ever questioned and only obeyed. 

It was his brother's commandments of survival. There was no burning bush or ghostly voice, only brown eyes in his face after both their parents died: promise me, Sam. Promise me that you'll keep safe, and keep with me. He had promised. His brother's face had held emotion more intense than anything he'd seen before, it didn't seem like he could say anything else. 

Stupid. 

Stupid to make a promise he couldn't keep. 

He rolled up his pant leg to see the half-circle bite mark on his calf. After he had been bit, he had tried to fool himself into thinking that he might be immune. He had seen so much death, and yet it had never actually seemed like he could die. That always happened to other people. People without a protector like Henry. 

But as he surveyed the damage, he could see that it was already worse. The area was swollen, hot, and leaking some kind of pus. Sam was staring at his own mortality. He didn't cry. 

He hadn't cried when his parents died. Not when he and Henry got seperated, and he saw a bundle of little corpses under a sheet. He wouldn't now. Tears wouldn't fill his final hours. 

Instead, he sat and thought. Ellie had said that the people inside of the infected were gone. Not in heaven, but not trapped inside the body either. But Sam felt as cognizant of his body as ever. And he remembered hearing some of the recently infected make noises that sounded like sobbing. 

He had never been more afraid. But he couldn't admit to his brother that he had fucked up for the last time. And he didn't have a pistol to ensure he didn't become a prisoner in his own body. He was trapped in this dismal, dirty room- the last one he'd ever see. 

Sam knew it was selfish not to go into the next room and tell the others he was infected. He was endangering them. But after seeing how capable Ellie and Joel were, he felt that they had a good chance of surviving. 

So what about his brother?

Sam figured his brother would be better off without having to babysit him.

He looked out the window, alone, and thought of all the food he'd never eat. The places he'd never see. The girls he'd never kissed. 

Sam unzipped his backpack and turned it upside-down. Scavenged supplies. This was what his life had come down to- months of walking from place to place, spooning old peaches into his empty stomach, and his brother promising better. His brother leading him forward with tales of a better world their parents had passed to them. Maybe they couldn't go back to before, Henry had said, but certainly they could do better than the quarantine zones. 

Sam felt hot. 

He remembered a photo he'd once seen, one his mother had once owned of herself and her sister. He had wanted to take it with them, but Henry had insisted that they couldn't. 

It weighs nothing, Sam had said. 

No. And that had been the end of it. 

Sam wished more than anything he could look at it now. 

Sam surveyed the rations in front of him. His brother always insisted on strictly controlling what they ate and when. Food was scarce, after all. 

Sam took the can opener off the table and cut open the peaches. 

He was going to eat as much as he pleased. He hoped that he lost consciousness soon. With the taste of something sweet in his mouth.


End file.
